WTF Did We Just Do, Alec MacGillis?

Still trying to wrap your head around that 18-month, six-billion dollar campaign? Not quite sure what to make of Tuesday's results? Not to worry: for the next few days we'll be surveying the best and brightest in politics and punditry to help you make sense of it all.

With The New Republic senior editor Alec MacGillis

GQ: What the f*ck did we just do for the last year?

AM: We spent more than a quarter of Barack Obama's first term obsessing over whether he would have a second term. Normally, I consider this kind of permanent-campaign mindset ridiculous. This year, it seemed semi-justified given that nothing was happening in Washington anyway and that so much of what Obama had done depended on his reelection to survive intact.

GQ: What does Republican party need to do now?

AM: First, turn off Fox News. Seriously, the echo chamber must be breached. Instead, reckon with the prescriptions of the smart disaffected conservativesRoss Douthat on helping the stressed working class, Josh Barro on economics and health care, Daniel Larison on foreign policy. Tone down the anti-immigrant stuff, of course, but that alone won't win Hispanics. They, like others, need to see that the party is about more than preserving the carried-interest loophole.

GQ: What does the president need to do in his second term?

AM: Put a price on carbonit'll bring revenue, some of which can be refunded to those lower on the income scale, and yes, it may just help slow the rising waters. End, or greatly shrink, the capital gains tax breakit'll reduce income inequality in one fell swoop. Make sure red states accept the Medicaid expansion money in Obamacarethe law's success depends on it. Keep up the pressure on colleges over reining in tuition. Get out more in Washington, but don't go overboard in trying to please the Very Serious People on deficit reduction.

GQ: What's the lesson you're taking away from this election?

AM: Never underestimate just how wrong the Beltway bubble/campaign pack can be, and do everything you can to get outside of it. Early in the summer, everyone agreed the Bain Capital attacks were a mistake. Just two weeks before the election, we were to believe that Romney was on an inexorable "trajectory" toward victory, all because of one strong debate. We were told the Des Moines Register endorsement signaled Obama's doom. Luckily, I had spent enough time out in the swing states to have a sense that all of this was wrong.

GQ: What is the most astonishing thing about the race to you?

AM: Just how high the stakes were. All of the talk about it being a "small" election was absurd. A near-universal health care law, tax rates for the next decade and so much more were riding on it. A few percentage points in the national popular vote separated Barack Obama from being Jimmy Carter II and his being on the way to enshrining himself as the liberals' Ronald Reagan.

GQ: Give us one song that sums up your feelings about the end of the campaign.

AM: Son Volt's "No Turning Back." And not just for the apt titleit's the perfect song for driving across wide open spaces in the swing states. "Take the cities the railroads built/ Shipping lines and immigrants/ Like Leadbelly says, no use for the Bourgeois Towns..."